The Cube Report (A beginning)

Index of Journals

"Do not bite what you cannot chew" the saying goes, and I did just exactly that when I joined the Gurugram office of Mobileum in the summers 2015.
It was an interesting project, one of it's own kind with respect to any  previous work done using iMAS.
Projects built using iMAS were tabular reports and configuration screens, and I thought I could build an OLAP report as my first project in a proprietary technology that was completely new to me, and while not knowing it's limitations.
But that's not how it began.
It began from that morning call from Bengaluru by Sneha Kiran (my manager).
She was going to discuss a task she had in mind for me as I had bandwidth that time.

Sneha would also have the then-lead Aniket with her on such calls for discussing the technical and implemention details.

I would like to digress a bit here: But the thing about these kind of stories is that these are 'stories', and there are three versions of it. My version of the story. His or her version of the story. And the outsider's version of the story. Still, as a writer, it is my duty to end such posts on a conclusion.

I wasn't very fond of Aniket back then. He is friendly, speaks softly but that is over generalization of what Aniket is like. We can say similar things about Sneha as well that she is a nice and caring person. But it is a completely different ball game when the people you are dealing with are your manager and to-be team lead, and not your friends.

The first estimate I got for this assignment was of a week under the conditions that I was a newbie to the iMAS and in the team.

Aniket was confident that he could build that report in 2-3 days so I had to accept that week's period to finish the report.

He was not right but he was not wrong either since requirements are supposed to be discussed and not accepted as is. The requirement given to me was not feasible with the approach I had taken. Aniket's estimate was coming from a type of report they used to call 'Drill Down Reports' in the GUI team. But this task wasn't about that.

I was working day and night. I was in working on weekdays and weekends. I was working in cab and on Metro floor. I was working in office and at home. It was a two months long mayhem that ended up with me breaking down over email before Engineering Vice President of the company.

I was trying to prove that I deserved this OLAP report or Ad-Hoc Report or Cube Report assignment. Also, when I look back at myself during that phase in time, I think that the egotistic tendencies in me brought out the worse in me and put me in a bad situation with my team, colleagues and seniors at work.
I was not only new to technology but also to the soft skills of communication, reading people and personalities, and the corporate politics.
That would be the end of the beginning. The next part would start with how I had to work with two managers for this project and I ended up working with neither.
Last line is a bit strongly worded but I do think I was out of sync with both the managers.

Tags: Journal,Management,